


To Never Grow Old

by artemisgrace



Series: Hannibal Rambling [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, but there is no lewd content, mention of murder, mention of suicide, rated teen for the show in question, reference to future main character death, references to death, which goes without saying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 09:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14998352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisgrace/pseuds/artemisgrace
Summary: The conversation that ensues when Will asks the question: "What happens when we get old?"What would they do if they were to live long enough to grow old?





	To Never Grow Old

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing my Yuri on Ice Hannibal AU, Serpentine, when I got distracted by a stray thought, and half and hour later, this was a thing. 
> 
> Yes, I'm writing again! School is over for the summer and I have a while before I get super busy, moving to a new country and all, so now I shall write!

“What happens when we get old?” comes Will’s voice from the darkness, and Hannibal can see him in his mind’s eye, as if it were fully lit, his dark hair matted to his pale face with sweat and blood, eyelashes wet with tears betraying fears and emotions that Hannibal himself could never hope to understand. 

But Will understands. He understands the intricacies of Hannibal, what makes him tick, what makes him kill, what makes him smile, what makes him truly alive, and yet he also sees all this and more in others, others in whom Hannibal’s understanding only scratched the surface. He hadn’t realized how little he knew, how little he understood, until he met Will, and though it chafed at first, he’d come to realize how great a thing it was to have not a rival, but an equal. 

He’s not sure exactly when that feeling, that craving, that obsession as it became, turned into love. Perhaps it always was. 

“Do you think we will get old?” Hannibal responds.

He doesn’t leave his own corner of the darkest night to give his answering question, to emerge now would destroy the moment, would tarnish a very particular poetry. It could make a marvelous painting, he thinks, the two of them, monsters in a twisted sort of love all their own, speaking from and of the dark. Perhaps painting in pure black could present a challenge, but Hannibal has never been one to shrink from a challenge, and if color were lacking, there’s still texture to work with. 

It’s hard to say whether Will would be rough or velvetine … 

“No,” comes the answer, and it almost echoes. 

There’s a weight to the word, but a curious lightness too. Neither of them is unfamiliar with death, even their own. 

“But what happens if we do?” Will continues, voice soft, “If we defy all odds and outlive every enemy, every threat?”

“Then we age. Our eyesight grows worse and our bones begin to ache, but we will continue to be ourselves.”

“Will we?” the answer rings through the air, sharp as a blade, and Hannibal can smell the metallic, coppery scent of him, the adrenaline, the constant underlying fear vying with hunger.

“I know you, Hannibal,” he goes on, “you could never stop what you do. You may not be compelled to kill, but you are a creature of habit and you’ve been at this for a long time.”

“You think me incapable of change?”

“You are the most adaptable person I’ve ever met, but in this, no. You kill when it suits you and you create art with the corpses when inspiration strikes you, but it would be nigh unbearable for you to be kept from doing either, betrayed by your own ailing body.”

“I cannot help but think,” Hannibal says, extending a hand or throwing a spear, depending on one’s view, “that you are speaking from your own thoughts as much as what you know of my own.”

Will smiles. Hannibal can’t see it, but he can feel it, the sound of a soft huff of breath from a laugh escaping his love’s lips to reach him.

“It’s hard to say where I stop and you begin. You made sure of that.”

“Do you resent me?” 

Hannibal pretends that this doesn’t still tickle at the edges of where his conscience might have been in a different life. Regret and remorse often walk hand in hand in the average mind, but to Hannibal they are two entirely distinct creatures, one he knows, and one he’s never known. Remorse is a foreign thing to him, but regret … he’s felt regret, especially for some of the events surrounding Will. He’s never been sorry for anything he’s done, not in the strictest sense, but there are some things that he would rather he’d done differently in hindsight. 

“I did,” Will says, “and in some small, remote corner of my mind, I expect I always will. But I’m not unhappy.” 

“But you do fear the future? Specifically with me?”

“I’ve always feared it. Even before I met you, I feared that all my tenuous friendships would eventually end, that I would die alone in that house in Wolf Trap, whether by stress, illness, or my own hand. I don’t have to worry about being alone anymore. For good or ill, you’re with me every waking moment and in my darkest of dreams.  
But that’s just the thing. I don’t think that you could live without me now any more than I could without you. I don’t think you could survive the mediocrity age and infirmity would bring, and I certainly wouldn’t survive without you.”

“You mean, you wouldn’t survive me,” Hannibal clarifies, the realization of what Will is really asking him creeping in.

“Would you do it? Could you give up like that?” Will asks, and Hannibal can hear a desperate undercurrent to the words, “Would you kill the two of us to save us from the horror of ineffectuality? Of powerlessness?”

“Would you wish me to?”

“Do you even need to ask?”

“For you,” Hannibal breathes, “I would. We could pass into immortality, without ever growing old.”

Will’s sigh is audible, and Hannibal’s breath is almost stolen from him as Will steps forth into the small stream of light that enters their space, his face illuminated even as the rest of him is mired in darkness. 

“I’d like that.”


End file.
